Sometimes I get to a one off gig and see a way I can be lazy and get away with a short programming day. But to be honest, anytime I think I’ll luck out in one of these scenarios, it usually bites me in the ass.
Last month I found myself in NYC to light a private party for some perfume launch. The musical artist at the gig was one of my clients so my presence was requested to light them for 30 minutes. No problem. Told the local lighting company to bring me down a hog or GrandMA console and I would patch in the clubs pars and movers and punt away.
As my cab pulls up to my destination, I notice a familiar place and realize I had done a show in the same place 6 months ago. With the same artist. So I walk in and lo and behold there is the house LD. Same guy I dealt with last year. He sees me and we have a good laugh. Then he goes on to tell me that he thinks he still has my punt page on his desk from last time I was there. Great, less work I’m thinking. Let’s forego the hog they brought down and give myself an easy day.
So the house guy starts searching for my page. After 10 minutes he realizes that someone has written over those cues and I am out of luck. But not to worry, my buddy can quickly rewrite the cues he tells me. So we sit down behind this worthless club desk and start hacking. It soon becomes evident that this console does not have enough fader options to do what I need to be able to do for me to punt a show properly. The house guy asks for my patience while he keeps hacking away.
Finally it’s about an hour til doors open and I have to pull the plug on my buddy. I have him write down the patch #’s for all the fixtures, then I throw the trusty hog2 and a wing in it’s place. Once patched, I write in 5 focus positions and build 10 color palettes. From these I fill one page of the console with 30-40 cues. All in under 1 hour. Had I done this when I first walked in I would’ve had a few hours to catch up on my sleep. Just goes to show that sometimes it’s better to go with something you know, then to trust someone else for what they know.
